TRANSFORMATIONAL MARKETING MAP FOR BUSINESS COACHES

The Transformational Marketing Journey for Business Coaches guides you through a comprehensive 12 step process explaining each step in detail and showing you a systematic way to grow your coaching business.

TRANSFORMATIONAL MARKETING MAP FOR BUSINESS COACHES

The Transformational Marketing Journey for Business Coaches guides you through a comprehensive 12 step process explaining each step in detail and showing you a systematic way to grow your coaching business.

Episode #6 – Joanne Clark from Destiny Pursuit Coaching and Training

Joanne Clark, Destiny Pursuit Coaching and Training

In this sixth episode of the InnovaBuzz podcast, Joanne Clark, of Destiny Pursuit Coaching and Training tells us about her innovative approach to coaching her clients and how she helps them get out of their own way! Watch the interview to learn what Joanne shared with us on the podcast.

Listen to the Podcast

Watch the Video

I’m giving away a 2 hour website accelerator session via Skype, with your’s truly, valued at $497. Just tell us below, when you’ve taken a weakness that you have and spun that into a positive. In other words, reframed a narrative from a weakness into a positive or taken an objection that somebody has placed in your way and reframed that narrative and spun it into a positive. In a few weeks, I’ll ask Joanne to swing by and award the prize.

Show Highlights

Some of the highlights of this episode include:

NLP is a powerful tool for business – helping people maximize what they are capable of with theirs strategies and behaviours.

Being the best she could be, for Joanne, meant being a trainer.

Be really clear about what you are in business for and where your strengths are and what you love doing – because then your work isn’t work. It is joyous!

To be innovative, you need to stop doing things – e.g. those things which are better outsourced to others, that are better suited to doing those tasks.

In building change, it is important to support the change with systems, processes and the culture that the change will be sustainable and not just revert back to the old way of doing things.

The Buzz – Our Innovation Round

Here are Joanne’s answers to the questions of our Innovation round. Watch the interview to get the full scoop.

#1 thing to be innovative – Connect with your creative space, and focus on the end you have in mind.

Best thing for new ideas – Take time to reflect, celebrate successes and plan for more success in the future.

Favourite tool for innovation – The Success Wheel.

Keep project / client on track – Constantly keeping in touch with their vision and purpose.

Differentiate – focus on what you are really, really good at – your unique point of difference.

Reach Out

Suggested Guest

Joanne nominated Mandy Brasser of Streamline for Success, who focus on building the foundation of processes, systems and people for business. Mandy keep an eye on your Inbox for an invitation from me, for the Innovabuzz Podcast!

Competition Hint

Hint: to enter the competition, leave a comment under this video and tell us when you’ve taken a weakness that you have and spun that into a positive. In other words, reframed a narrative from a weakness into a positive or taken an objection that somebody has placed in your way reframed that objection into a positive.

Links

Full Transcript

Click to read….

Hi, I’m Jürgen Strauss from Innovabiz. Welcome to Episode No 6 of the InnovaBuzz Podcast – designed to help smart businesses with an interest in innovation and the Internet of Things become even more innovative.

In this episode, our guest is Joanne Clark from Destiny Pursuit Coaching and Training and she is going to tell us about her innovative approach to business coaching, to change management and to building sustainable change in a business. We are going to learn how Joanne helps business owners “get over themselves” in other words, overcome the fear that holds them back. She says that if we learn to overcome our fears, that we can achieve way beyond our dreams in a way that is actually much easier than we imagine.

What struck me in this interview, and indeed whenever I work with Joanne, because I’ve known her for a few years, is her ability to connect with people and then help them understand what it is that is actually holding them back and helping them reach their own solutions. She likens it to having someone hold a mirror up to you, so that you can see what things are holding you back and what barriers you are building for yourself.

This week’s innovation tip is get out of your comfort zone! That’s right, do something that is scary – make a cold sales call; get up in front of an audience and give a presentation; anything that you are resisting, because it is outside your comfort zone. The thing is, that by doing that, you will not only learn a new skill and grow your confidence in doing what feels uncomfortable at first, you will also be overcoming one of those fears that are perhaps holding you back from achieving more. Stephen Covey in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, points out that your growth zone is outside of your comfort zone. Now the great thing is that the more time you spend in your growth zone, the larger your comfort zone becomes. Think of all the things you couldn’t do when you were 10 years old – they felt uncomfortable once. So put yourself in the growth zone, consciously, by getting uncomfortable.

Before we meet Joanne, a quick competition announcement – this week’s competition prize is sponsored by Innovabiz and it is a which is a 2 hour website accelerator session via Skype, with your’s truly, valued at $497, so stick around for details on how you can enter the draw to win that prize later on in the video.

So stay with us, let’s get into the Innovation Hive and get the Buzz from Joanne Clark.

Interview

Jürgen: Hi I’m Jurgen Strauss, and it’s a pleasure to have with me today on the InnovaBuzz Podcast, Joanne Clark from Destiny Pursuit Coaching and Training.

Welcome Joanne!

Joanne: Thank you, Jürgen.

Jürgen: It’s a pleasure to have you here. Now Joanne is a Certified NLP Trainer. She is a Master NLP Practitioner and Trainer. She is a performance coach, she is a life coach and she is a speaker – an awesome speaker and so much more. In fact, she is also a private pilot. She is a mother of four children and yes, just like the rest of us Joanne has 24 hours in her day. So she fits all of that in! We’re going to talk today about at all things innovation in coaching and training and personal development and being the best you can be. But before we do that, I’d just like to announce the competition for the day and I’m offering today a critique of your website and a 2-hour Skype call to actually work on improving the website in order to get you more sales from that website and development of an action plan that you can implement immediately to improve the conversion of the website. So stay tuned later on in this interview to learn how you can enter the draw to win that prize.

So Joanne let’s start by learning a little bit about you. When you were a young child what did you want to be?

Joanne: Well, as you mentioned in the intro, Jürgen, one of the things that I wanted to be was pilot and sitting here in front of my double screened computer – I have a big photograph of my cockpit up in front of me so I can always be like I’m flying somewhere.

Jürgen: That’s interesting. So you actually realised that ambition at some point.

Joanne: I did indeed, I did. When I had my children and we used to drive in my car , and you know – two or three say I want a horse – but I want something else and I want to be a pilot and then in one of my significant birthdays, my children actually booked flying lessons – so that’s how it started. I had to go and be a pilot then.

Jürgen: That’s fantastic. So how did you get into coaching and training?

Joanne: Well I’ve worked as a Senior Executive for quite a number of years with large organizations in Victoria – and I wanted a change in my life. I was at that point where my children had grown up and I thought it was time for a change and I reflected on what was the moment in my life when I felt really in the flow. Like everything was working and I really felt like I was using all my strengths and I was being challenged as well in this world and I thought, those times as you know – working with people to have them achieve their wildest dreams, exceeding what they thought was possible and those were the times in my life that I really felt connected to myself and those people that I was working with and it really felt that I was making a difference. That made me think that’s the sort of work to do in order to do that all the time. So coaching was the tool.

Jürgen: Okay and so you did some extensive training with the Coaching Institute here in Australia?

Joanne: Yeah

Jurgen: And when did you get involved in NLP?

Joanne: Well while studying my Diploma at the Coaching Institute in Melbourne, they included NLP practitioner training in there and I’ve also done undergraduate Psychology and I’d worked in the past with people with acquired brain injury who can get rehabilitation programs that will help them recover functions. So I have a little bit of background when it comes to how to get people to use their brain more effectively. And when I did NLP Training, it was just like a key that unlocked for me set of tools that could work not only with people with a brain injury but with everybody, to make sure you are maximizing what you are capable of in terms of getting really efficient and effective strategies. It was just like a tool box that unlocks the treasure case. I’ve really invested a lot of my time, energy and money in becoming the best that I could be at NLP – and that meant being a trainer.

Jürgen: Well that’s the interesting point you might there isn’t it? About investing time and money and being the best that you can be and educating yourself in the tools that you are going to help your clients with in your business.

Joanne: Absolutely

Jürgen: So how do you describe what you do now in one sentence? What’s your elevator pitch?

Joanne: Well I work with business owners; my part with those business owners is – I really want them to exceed their dreams – because most of us are capable of more than we can imagine. It’s fear that holds us back, often. So I want to work with business owners so that they really do exceed their dreams and that can be easier than they imagine as well. So what I do is to investigate with them what are the things they do really, really well and how do they do that and then maybe look at what they are not doing so well and think about changing how they do what they are not doing so well and use the same sort of strategy that they are using where they’re already having success . But it’s not about me telling them how to run their business. It’s actually about me finding out at what already works for them and spreading that in all of their business – so that they will have their own effective strategies to build their success.

Jürgen: That’s great, so helping them exceed their wildest dream is the elevator pitch. Now, Joanne is actually my business coach so I know how she operates and she is awesome and I like it when you say, you know; get out of your own way.

Joanne: Well, that’s right.

Jürgen: Because often we are, aren’t we? We are in our own way!

Joanne: That’s right. For most of us, the only thing that stops us really achieving more is holding ourselves back inside and it’s not that we want do it deliberately. It’s just what human beings do and having someone externally who can be like a mirror and reflect that back to you help you realize; gee I don’t have to do it that way. I can get out on my own way.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s great so what do you spend most of your time doing day to day?

Joanne: Well most of my time, I’m spending time working with clients or looking for solutions for clients. So there – what I’m looking at is if someone has a particular issue or challenge, then I’ll look for solutions that will work for them knowing their specific strategies and their business goals and their hopes and dreams and the last one I want to have is to identify solutions to the challenges that we’ve got – so that they could overcome the speed bumps on the way and they really push themselves through. So, yeah most of my time, I am working with clients and often that’s in groups. I find that working with clients in a group is – it’s not luck – I ensure that the groups have a range of people in it, that will challenge each other. People are not all the same in the group. They are diverse and they challenge each other – and in challenging each other, they grow because of this. The power of growth is in the contrast that you are able to confront and deal with constructively.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s great. That’s an interesting point about groups. I did an interview this morning that, you know I’ll have this link there. I don’t remember the book’s name now that my guest talked about but It was about Mathematicians in Europe back in the 16th century. So people like Newton and Kepler and so on. How they actually communicated with one another in those days and bounced ideas off one another and sort of critiqued one another’s publications and so on. Of course it was all done by letters which took maybe a month to get the response back then – so it was kind of slow. You think that these guys were geniuses and they operated in a vacuum and sort of did this amazing stuff. Certainly did this amazing stuff but they actually bounced ideas off their peers at that time.

Joanne: That’s exactly right. I mean there’s a saying – there’s no original ideas. In some ways you know like they’ve been thought of before and the more you collaborate with other people, the more fertilizer you’ve got to grow you ideas and certainly back in the Mathematicians in the 16th century and also the Physicists then, they didn’t look at knowledge as something that they owned but something they shared.

Jürgen: That’s right. So what are some of the biggest challenges you face in building your business?

Joanne: Well, I find details really tedious and in my previous career, I’ve always had excellent executive assistants or personal assistants – and going into business for myself, when I first started out it was just me. So I had to do a lot of that work myself which was very challenging. Everything took so long! I couldn’t just delegate it to someone who is really very good at it but I had to do it myself. And their were some significant gaps in my capabilities around a lot of things. Even things like formatting documents. It used to frustrate me enormously and you know, that thing really is the small business start up challenge, when you are doing everything yourself and you embrace skills and capabilities and an eye for detail or perhaps an eye for a big picture – things that aren’t in your comfort zone and I found that very, very challenging and still now, I still know if I get drawn back into the detail – that is definitely a stretch for me.

Jürgen: Yeah, but you do have people that help you do some of that detail now?

Joanne: I do indeed. Certainly the internet detail I’m very happy to have someone manage for me! I think building a team of people and it doesn’t mean everyone is your employee obviously. You contract professionals that you can work with effectively – really has helped me manage my time better, so that I could focus on what I’m trained to do, what I love doing and what I’m really good at doing. And that’s how business owners should operate – focus on those things; what are you trained to do, what do you love doing and what are you really good at? Do those things more.

Jürgen: Yeah, I was listening to a podcast yesterday while driving in the car and I think it was Michael from Mini Movers or something like that. I can’t remember now but he’s got several multimillion dollar businesses and he said, things started to happen and started to grow in a big way when he was off-shoring a lot of work to the Philippines – which is interesting because you and I both do a little bit of that. He said that’s when things really started to happen from a small business perspective because all those administrative things and the things he didn’t like doing or was not good at doing, he can get other people to do that and he could get them to do that much more cost effectively and he could focus on where his expertise is – which is going to add the most value.

Joanne: Yes, that’s absolutely perfect. I mean, to me that is the essential thing about having a successful business. Knowing what to do for yourself, where to stop doing and what to delegate to others. Now we’re always responsible for it. So it is delegation not abdication. Yes, but you know really being clear about what you are in business for and where your strengths are and what you love doing – because then your work isn’t work. It is joyous. That’s not to say it’s not tough at times – of course it is! But if you are connected with the purpose for doing that thing and you know that pushes you forward.

Jürgen: Yeah, great. So what’s the one thing that keeps you awake at night? Do you worry about something?

Joanne: Well, usually if I wake up, it’s because I am thinking about all the things on my “to do” list and I have to confess I’m usually a woman in hurry. So I don’t like leaving things for a long time – I like finishing. Sometimes, I wake up and think that I haven’t finished this, I haven’t finished that – and if I am awake at night for more than half an hour, I actually get up and do some stuff and then it’s clear and I can go back to sleep. But usually, it’s that I couldn’t finish that, I want to finish this – and that usually wakes me up at about 12 o’clock in the morning if I’m going to get woken up. I must say, though, I’m a pretty good sleeper.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s interesting because I kind of have the same problem. It’s usually ideas and thoughts and things that I want to get to that keep me awake at night and can’t stop thinking about it. Another podcast guest Johnson Ongking, he mentioned that he does bike riding, interestingly enough as one of his balance things and he often does it on his own and he said; “it washes the mind” – the expression he used because it clears the mind and he starts to think of new ideas and stuff because he is not worried about all the day to day activities or he is not worried about what’s going on right now.

Joanne: Yeah, and that’s a good analogy – washing the mind. I find with my flying – when I go flying, it requires a lot of attention and focus and you have to be on all the time and it’s totally different when the thing that I’m doing is risking my life, so I find that to be a washing the mind experience. I can go flying for a couple of hours and it is like I’m somewhere else. Just totally different way of thinking – it’s being very focused and watching the instruments all the time as well as enjoying the scenery and making sure your navigation is on track, so that’s my washing of mind experience. Although as you know, I also like cycling!

Jürgen: Yeah, you probably answered some of the questions coming up about balance but as you know I’m a keen photographer and that’s where I find that I completely lose myself in the photography and what I’m photographing and everything else just sort of evaporates and it does not exist for that time. So it’s like you say, it’s like a holiday.

Joanne: Yeah, it is and. In the book Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – I’m not sure I’ve said his name right, in that book he talks about connecting to the flow and I think for me washing the mind is being connected to the flow. That happens to me sometimes with clients as well. I can be working with clients, have absolutely no sense of how long it’s been – just lose yourself in the moment of being me. It’s being almost line being in a bubble with no time and you know you’re just moving inside that bubble doing whatever’s there and then feeling refreshed and rejuvenated and almost relaxed, maybe even a bit fancy afterwards!

Jürgen: Okay, ready to tackle some of the administrative task.

Joanne: Yeah, maybe, might do those before.

Jürgen: Okay so when did you discover the web?

Joanne: You mean for business?

Jürgen: Well, for you.

Joanne: Me, well with my kids. We didn’t have a television in our house. We did have computers. Our children would use the computers a lot and of course they used them for school but that’s really where our family entertainment world was – on computers and we had it in the family room. Back in those days, I think, we had a little Apple and the computer games certainly weren’t what they are now – I think there was something about finding someone in San Diego or Carmen.

Jürgen: Carmen San Diego yeah, our kids grew up with that too.

Joanne: So you know we used computers for entertainment then as well as obviously for research and studying. The Internet specifically, I used it a lot when I was working at the Transport Accident Commission. We used a lot of internet functionality there and then in my business and at the Coaching Institute – obviously, there were very keen to make sure we were using cutting edge technologies which gave our business the best advantages. A lot of the marketing is focused on using the Internet today.

Jürgen: So what are some of the innovative things you do in the internet today in your business?

Joanne: Well, I’m building a website that is, I think, very innovative in terms of coaching – having a lot of training online for small businesses. My target is really to try and tap into regional centres, in country Australia – where there is enormous potential for people to do business online and I see that as a way for regional centres and country towns to almost like suck income into the town from outside. It gives them access to an international market, for their types of services and that can bring resources and money into their town rather than everyone having to leave to get a job to survive.

So what I’m in the process of doing is building that online training and coaching through the internet and included in that, I want to have assessment tasks for them so that if people want to use it and get a tertiary qualification, that can get for example Certificate 3 or Certificate 4 or diplomas in their field to help their business. So that in terms of coaching is really the beginning, certainly some universities do a lot of online training. I did my undergraduate Psychology many years ago which was online. I’m taking it to a different level [inaudible].

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s exciting stuff.

Joanne: And I’m involving you in that.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s right so I know a little bit more about that than what we are talking about here. Now you’ve talked about what you do when you are not working. So tell us a little bit more about some of the exciting places you’ve flown to or some of the exciting bike rides you’ve done?

Joanne: Yes, well I’ve flown across Australia, so I’ve flown from Moorabbin all the way across west Australia down to Albany.

Jürgen: So Moorabbin – that’s in Melbourne, yeah.

Joanne: Yes, Melbourne, Victoria so from the east coast to the west coast of Australia and for those of you familiar with Australia, you would appreciate that’s a long way.

Jürgen: Yeah, over three thousand kilometres, right?

Joanne: Yes, so that was a great adventure to go in a small plane along the South Coast of Australia, flying over the Great Australian Bight and it was at a time when the whales were active in the Australian Bight, because the whales were up from the Antarctic to have their calves in the Australian Bight and you know whales with little baby whales and we could go and look at the whales. For that trip, whilst I did all the planning and had all the navigation done, of course every day we got out to look at the weather. Every day we had to decide if it would be a safe day to fly, and will you be able to get to your destination and will you be able to land. And of course when you are flying a small plane, there would be days that we got up and you just can do it. My father was with me on this trip and we were staying in a little place called Border Town which is basically a petrol station with motel rooms at the back and that’s the whole town and I landed my plane at the airstrip, taxied the plane up to the motel. And then dad and I were in the motel room and we had dinner in their cafe that night. The plan was to leave the next day. We were planning to fly to a town called Kaibuna(?), but what we found when we got up in the morning, the cross winds were so strong and there’s only one strip in Kaibuna, that my plane couldn’t land in the cross wind. So we couldn’t go. We had to spend another day in Border Town. So it’s just one of those adventures. You meet people coming through those road houses – we met a truck driver from outback Australia who drives everywhere with his big rig which he sleeps in most of the time. People really love to chat and talk about their life adventures. So it’s a great way to meet people, that normally I wouldn’t have met, I suppose. When we did get to fly off we took off and then needed to refuel along the way, so we landed at a place called Eucla and at Eucla, they have a golf course that’s made of dirt and there was an old fellow there who used to fly an ultra-light in from the neighbouring town. It was almost like one of those kite ultra-lights and he’d have his golf clubs with him and land on the first tee, play golf, then fly back.

Jürgen: Okay, that’s a great way to commute to the golf course!

Joanne: Australia is a great country to fly in, because it’s flat. There are not too many mountains. You have to be out of your way to find mountains to run into. And there are lots of air strips. It’s a great country to fly in.

Jürgen: Great and have you read any interesting book lately that you could share with us?

Joanne: Yes, in fact I’ve got it here – this book I’m into at the moment.

Jürgen: I see it – Kegan and Lahey “How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work”.

Joanne: This is a really interesting book for me at the moment because it’s talking about resistance to change. It’s looking at it in terms of almost like an immune system and how as humans we have a resistance to change, an immunity to change. We think we’re going to change and we go through a process of growth, growth, growth, growth, growth and then kind of slide back to the dynamic equilibrium of the way things have been or we might go backwards even further and you know sort of degenerate a bit and we’ll reach that point where that’s not tolerable to us and we’ll do what we need to do just to get back to the comfort zone. As a coach, this is one of the challenges obviously that most clients have. How do we put in place sustainable change so that you can make a change that it stays there – and then you can grow from that instead of sliding back to the same old, same old – and don’t improve. And it relates not only to individuals, but to organisational change as well.

Jürgen: Yeah, which is a big challenge too.

Joanne: Yeah, you’ve got to get individuals committed to the change and then you’ve got to actually change the culture in the organisation as well and then having it be sustained. Often when I go into a large organisation to do coaching, one of the first things the staff say is “Oh we’ve done this before”. And you know, it hasn’t been sustained for them, so they get rather cynical of change and innovation because they have seen it over and over again and they are in that groove of making change go through it all – and then back to same old same old and round and round they’ve gone. So when I come to work with organisations I want to build change then that’s sustainable.

Jürgen: That’s a really important point. Don’t just slip back into the old habits otherwise you’ve just wasted your time.

Joanne: That’s right.

Jürgen: So if you can wave a magic wand and fix one thing in your business today, what would that be?

Joanne: I would have a lot more systems already in place for my own business. I still spend a lot of my time doing things that really, it’s time I have systems for. So if I wave my magic wand, I would be twelve months ahead with those systems in place. They are all in my plans this year to put them in place. So making sure my CRM (Client Relationship Management) system is up and running. Making sure all my reporting and strategic planning, tracking, reporting is up and online so that I can easily and effortlessly check things as they are happening and also making sure that systems are in place to monitor my team, even the ones that are overseas, so that they can get clear instructions to do the job correctly and they can give the report on time so I can know that the work is being done.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s great. So what are you currently working on? Are you currently working on those systems or you’ve got some other exciting stuff going on?

Joanne: Well I’m currently working on my CRM. So I’ve purchased Infusionsoft, the CRM of my choice and I’m working on that and transferring my data into that system as we speak. The other exciting stuff I’m working on with my NLP training, I’m really keen to take that to a new level. Neuro Linguistic Programming which I’m obviously passionate about, was developed back in the 1970’s and it has a vast array of things that are relevant and things that I can apply further. So later this year I’m investing more time and money and effort into learning and adding on to that meta-dynamics training at the Coaching Institute. So I’m anticipating running my first meta-dynamics training following my training in October. Those who are in NLP in November will be getting two certifications. They will have a NLP practitioner’s certification and they will also have meta-dynamics level one certification, which is pretty exciting.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s sounds great! Alright let’s go on to our innovation round. I’m calling that “The Buzz”, it’s 5 or 6 questions you’ll hopefully give us a one line answer that will be awesome and blow our audience away and give them ideas on how they can get over themselves! So the first question is what’s the number one anyone needs to do to be more innovative?

Joanne: They need to connect with their creative space and to do that you have to stop doing stuff. So you actually need to step back and think about where I am going, what is at the end I have in mind and how am I’m going to get there? How am I going to get there are the steps to work out on the way but first of all you have to be really, really clear about what is the end you have in mind. They you can drive innovation with clarity.

Jürgen: Excellent advice. What’s the best thing you’ve done to develop new ideas or new products in your business?

Joanne: Well I take some time out every year where I actually go away to a different environment and reflect. I make sure I’m reflecting on what I’ve achieved, so I do celebrate the successes and explore what would be even more awesome for me to do in the next twelve months. I do a success wheel on a regular basis so I’m looking at 8 areas of my business and I rate myself out of 10 in those areas of business to see how well I’m tracking and I set where I want to be in 12 months and just get really, really clear on that as a vision for myself. Then I go back into my sweat room if you’d like and work out how I’m going to do it.

Jürgen: So there are few key messages there – so assess your performance measure where you are at in various categories and go back and look at how you are going to improve those.

Joanne: Yes

Jürgen: So what’s the best way to keep a project or client on track?

Joanne: Constantly keeping in touch with their vision, their purpose and what are they there for? As long as they’re clear about that then the wavering off track they can see the cost of it for themselves and that causes pain. When you are really clear about your purpose and you are really committed to it and start going on to these side journeys, you can lose sight of your purpose. So getting back in touch with what is their purpose for doing what they’re doing, is important, because doing just for the sake of doing is painful.

Jürgen: So make sure they never lose sight of the end goal. That’s great. So what’s your favourite tool or system for innovation?

Joanne: My favourite tool or system for innovation. That almost seems like a contradiction to me. Once it becomes of a favourite, it doesn’t feel like it’s innovative. I really do like the Success Wheel for people. Quick, easy, simple and in a snap they can see where they can get the most leverage. And to me innovation is about identifying where you can get the most leverage. Focus your attention on what would get you the best results right now. And deliver on the other areas of the business as well. So for me I suppose, the Success Wheel is the tool I’d recommend for people to decide where to focus their innovations.

Jürgen: That’s good. So we’ll place a link to underneath the transcript of this video, to some success wheels, so people can explore that in a little bit more of detail.

So what’s the number one thing you can do to differentiate yourself?

Joanne: To differentiate myself?

Jürgen: You or your advice to other people. What other people can do to differentiate themselves.

Joanne: Oh cool. Well, what I’d say, again, it is about knowing what we’re really, really good at – and become familiar also with what other people are doing with that. So know what your competitors are doing and know why they’re doing it and explore how they do it. So you can identify what’s your unique point of difference is in terms of what you’ve got to offer. I’m very clear about what kind of clients I want to work with and what clients are not a match for me. And I certainly make referrals for clients on to other coaches if they are not a match for me. So when you’re clear about what is your unique point of difference in the business, you’re not afraid to refer people on, if they’re not a match for you. So identify very, very clearly, what you are very, very good at. Some people might call it what your song is if you like and once you are very clear about that then you start to attract the clients that are a match for your strengths.

Jürgen: Yeah that’s great advice, so know what your strengths are and what you are good at and focus on that but then also know who the ideal client is – that matches your strengths and who can help best.

Joanne: And if someone comes to you, who is not your ideal client, refer them on. Then you will know that you are managing yourself in alignment with your values and your beliefs and who you believe you are. And that comes through.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s a great advice and also you’re helping that person because the best solution is somebody else.

Joanne: Yeah, exactly!

Jürgen: Great. So what’s the future for Destiny Pursuit?

Joanne: Well I am looking forward to – at the end of 2015 my husband will be joining me in the business and I’m very excited about that. He has a very strong background in Education. So particularly for my innovation around online training, his skills and capabilities – he has masters in education, so his skill and capabilities there will add enormous value to my clients. So I’m really excited about that. And I’m excited about that my new client relationship management system which is a bit ironic really, because it is a system that requires great attention to detail. It’s my stretch! But I’m excited about that because I can see how much leverage that will give me in my business and I do suggest to people, as soon as you can invest in good client relationship management system, do it – because it just frees you up to focus on what you are really in business for.

Jürgen: And we are talking about Infusionsoft here. So we will give them a plug and it is a fabulous system that allows you to automate a lot of those administration steps that you referred to and none of us probably like doing in business.

Joanne: No, no. And you know for a CRM what I am looking for is – it needs to be integrated. I’m not really talking about just a mail out system. I want it all integrated in one. That’s where you get most leverage in your business.

Jürgen: Yeah, that’s great. What do you see as the future of the Coaching Industry?

Joanne: Well the Coaching Industry has enormous growth in it at the moment. There are a lot of people becoming coaches. Now the thing about that is people need to be clear on what they are looking for in a coach, in selecting their coach – because there is going to be such an enormous variety of coaches available. I think the future of the coaching industry will be a lot more online training. For me what I have been trained to believe, is as a coach, I work with people so that they grow and become more and more independent. So that in the long term, if I have a long term coaching relationship with someone, it’s because I’m coaching them on different things. It’s not working with people on the same issues over and over again. And I’m really excited that [inaudible] coaching federation has got good registration and standards in place now. So maybe it’s an industry that’s looking at more regulation and credentials and standards. So that people have a benchmark they could use to make a selection for a coach that really suits their need.

Jürgen: Yeah, alright. Thanks for that. One more question – the Internet of Things so, we talk a little bit about innovations and systems, what do you see as things down the track from the Internet of Things?

Joanne: Well I think things like, if you think really laterally about how we can change even business models. You talked early about the mathematicians in the 16th century and for me the internet opens up the notion that no one owns an idea. They’re there to share and it is what the internet is doing. I like the idea of the internet being used to really get leverage on collaboration [inaudible]. I’ve seen examples where people have put for example viruses – posted viruses up on the internet and they’ve got computer gamers working out how to beat the virus and out of that have developed models for treatment for viral disease. You know stuff like that, you know it’s almost like science fiction still for us. What was science fiction; you know even 30 years ago is now just normal life. So I like looking at the cutting edge and I also like looking at that in areas like humanitarian work in third world countries and you know the whole notion that we can leverage off the back of things we do every day and for example I do have another small business where I sell gas and electricity online and the profit I make from that goes toward helping fund a hospital that Catherin Hamlin set up in Ethiopia. So a person using gas and electricity is a source of funds for healthcare in a third world country. To me that’s an exciting innovation that we get from the internet that we couldn’t have before – you couldn’t even track where the money is going it’s just all big mystery around into the pockets of some manager in I don’t know international corporation. But ordinary everyday people now can use the internet to do small things like that, that add up and give us leverage.

Jürgen: Yeah, fabulous example. So work for the good of humanity.

Joanne: And without doing anything extra. No drama, it is just me using my electrical lights.

Jürgen: Yeah, great. So just getting back to the competition today – I mentioned that it is a two-hour Skype call with me to analyze your website and look at how to make it more effective in getting you either sales or new leads, with an action plan that you can implement immediately. So what we would like you to do to enter the competition is leave a comment under the video and tell us when you’ve taken a weakness that you have and spun that into a positive. In other words, reframed a narrative from a weakness into a positive or taken an objection that somebody has placed in your way so whether it’s a sale or whether it’s an idea that you are trying to implement and reframed that narrative and spun it into a positive. So I hope that makes sense. Leave a comment under the video and be creative – we do want you to think, that is why we are giving away the prize! So in a couple of weeks I’ll get Joanne to come back and have a look and award the prize to the one that she thinks is the best contribution.

Joanne: It’s a great prize, Jürgen. I know a few people who would love to have it!

Jürgen: Alright, so finally then Joanne what’s the number one piece of advice you’d give to any business that wants to be a leader in innovation and in what they do?

Joanne: Well, it has to be: get out of your way!

Jürgen: Get out of your way and do it! Great! Okay this has been fantastic so where can people reach out to you and say thank you for your time and what you’ve shared today.

Joanne: So the best way to contact me is by email so my email address is joanne@destinypursuit.com.au

Jürgen: Alright, yeah and people can obviously look at the website destinypursuit.com.au and learn a little bit more. So I’ll post all those links underneath the video.

Yes, thanks so much, Joanne for spending time with us today on the InnovaBuzz Podcast. It’s been really been fantastic and I wish you all the best for Destiny Pursuit. I’m really excited to see how it develops over the next 12 months and see where you end up in it in 12 months time.

Joanne: Thank you, Jürgen.

Jürgen: Thanks.

Joanne: It’s been great, Bye.

Wrap

I hope you enjoyed meeting Joanne as much as I enjoyed interviewing her on the podcast. She certainly is a woman in a hurry and is doing some fantastic things in the coaching arena. There are some great tips in the interview and it’s well worth following up on some of the tools, such as the Success Wheel.

Joanne nominated Mandy Brasser of Streamline for Success, to be on a future podcast. Streamline for Success focus on building the foundation of processes, systems and people for business. Mandy keep an eye on your Inbox for an invitation from me, for the Innovabuzz Podcast!

Of course, you can subscribe to this Podcast via iTunes or Stitcher, so that you’ll never miss an episode.

All the show notes for this episode will be at innovabiz.com.au/joanneclark, that is J-O-A-N-N-E-C-L-A-R-K, all lowercase, all one word, innovabiz.com.au/joanneclark for all of the links and everything we spoke about in this episode. Remember, leave your comments underneath the video for your chance to win the website accelerator Skype call with me.

Leave a comment under the video and tell us when you’ve taken a weakness that you have and spun that into a positive. In other words, reframed a narrative from a weakness into a positive or taken an objection that somebody has placed in your way so whether it’s a sale or whether it’s an idea that you are trying to implement and reframed that narrative and spun it into a positive. I’ll get Joanne to swing by in a couple of weeks and award the prize.

If you like these podcast episodes, please give us a five star review over at iTunes. It really does help to get more listeners and to share this information with a bigger audience. Until next time.

Remember, if you don’t innovate, you stagnate, so think big, be adventurous and innovate on!

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